Corruption: ICPC, CCB Canvass Enactment Of Whistleblower Law
The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), Dr. Musa Adamu Aliyu, SAN, and his Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) counterpart, Abdullahi Bello, have canvassed for the accelerated enactment of a whistleblower protection law in Nigeria.
The duo made the call during a radio town hall meeting organized by PRIMORG in partnership with AFRICMIL at the weekend in Abuja, during which Dr Aliyu said that anti-graft agencies in the country rely heavily on whistleblowing to function effectively thus, the need for a law to protect people who make disclosures.
The theme of the radio town hall meeting was tagged; ‘Challenge of The Absence of Whistleblowing Legislation in Nigeria and Its Impact On the Anti-Corruption War’.
Aliyu, who was represented by Demola Bakare, Spokesperson of the Commission, said that the anti-corruption mandate was on course even in the absence of a whistleblower law. He however, said that more needed to be done to curb public sector corruption in Nigeria thus, called on anti-corruption agencies and law enforcement officers to tweak their in-house policies to protect whistleblowers.
He advocated for serious sanctions to be meted out on the staff of anti-graft agencies found culpable of breaching the code of confidentiality.
According to him; “All the anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies rely on intelligence or information from members of the public to function effectively. They have contributed ideas to the draft whistleblower bill pending.
“I can say categorically of the anti-corruption agencies: our agency (ICPC), the EFCC, and the Code of Conduct Bureau have all contributed to it. The anti-corruption crusade is on course, but more work has to be done. There is still a lot to do because it’s not easy to address and overcome something that is behaviourally attitudinal.
“The Act establishing the ICPC urges us to protect the sanctity of the information that we receive as well as the informant. So, to an extent, is to protect anybody that gives us information,” he said.
The ICPC boss urged Nigerians not to lose hope in the country, emphasizing that commission and other anti-corruption agencies need information from citizens to do their jobs effectively.
“Anti-corruption agencies, too, must play their role. We should sanction our people, who breach the code of confidentiality internally”.
Speaking in turn, the Chairman of the CCB, represented by Simon Abu, Director of States and Local Government Department, said President Bola Tinubu must expeditiously persuade the 10th National Assembly to pass whistleblowing into law if the administration wants to fight corruption.
He said; “Corruption has brought Nigeria to a sordid state, and if we are to fight corruption, President Tinubu should put it on the National Assembly to expeditiously pass whistleblowing into law.”
He said in delivering on its mandate, the CCB is challenged by interference from highly placed public officials, politicians, and traditional leaders, among others and therefore called on Non-governmental organisations to keep the pressure on the authorities to pass the whistleblower law.
He futher said; “We need the pressure groups, NGOs, and CSOs to put pressure on the federal lawmakers to pass this (whistleblower) bill expeditiously because whistleblowing issues are germane to curbing corruption on a very high scale”.
On his part, AFRICMIL’s Senior Programme Officer, Crispin Oduobuk called on citizens to demand enactment of whistleblowing law from their representatives who are members of the Nigerian Senate and Federal House of Representatives, stressing that “whistleblowing is the biggest tool to fight corruption”.
Oduobuk said that Nigeria needs a statutory body set up by law to protect whistleblowers in the country and lamented the inability of the Federal Government to pass the 2022 Whistleblower Draft Bill domiciled at the Federal Ministry of Finance into law to date.
The Progressive Impact Organisation for Community Development, PRIMORG, and the Africa Center for Media and Information Literacy, AFRICMIL, have been advocating for the Nigerian government to strengthen its anti-corruption war with legislation following the inception of the whistleblower policy in 2016.
